Umm I would say probably TCU, rehab, maybe behavioral health. Those patients trend to have a lower acuity. As for med surg, I think that's kind of hit or miss. I wouldn't consider it low acuity, but I wouldn't always consider it high acuity either

Med-surg is a catch-all term sometimes. A med-surg patient might be actually fairly high acuity, but the ICU or step-down unit needed a bed and the patient transferred to Med-surg because they were the best candidate even though they would have benefited from a little more ICU time.
I don't think low acuity really exists for inpatients anymore. Long term care with an emphasis on rehab and the new concept of LTACs have siphoned off low acuity long term patients.

Hello!! What would be an axample of a low acuity floor/unit in a hospital setting? For example, would med/surg be considered a low acuity floor?

Thanks for your perspectives on this!

PP pts aren't always low acuity either. I'm not a pp nurse but our unit often has sick moms with insulin/heparin drips, mag, blood transfusions...ect. I think every unit just depends on the particular day. Even the healthy pp pts can be a lot of work. That "taking in" period can make them VERY needy

PP pts aren't always low acuity either. I'm not a pp nurse but our unit often has sick moms with insulin/heparin drips, mag, blood transfusions...ect. I think every unit just depends on the particular day. Even the healthy pp pts can be a lot of work. That "taking in" period can make them VERY needy

Absolutely and I AM a PP nurse. Perhaps "back in the day" PP floors were "cake" but gone are those days. Mothers are being admitted with more comorbidities which then increase acuity. Our floor also admits gyne surgical patients with drains and complicated cases as well as ER admits with all sorts of issues; as long as they have a vagina, they're ours. So PP being cake is not so true. It's 2013, not 1960 where we all sit in our starched white nursing uniforms, rocking babies all night. I barely sit and when I do, it's not for a break, it's to chart so I can go right back and help a first time mom breast feed for 45 minutes.

If you break down the concept of "acuity", you're actually looking at 2 factors: 1) Intensity and 2) workload. Intensity refers to the amount of nursing assessment & interventions that need to be done... you can have a completely ambulatory patient that has high intensity needs if they are dealing with a new diagnosis or have to learn self-care management in a very short amount of time. On the other hand, you can have very stable patients (low intensity) that have a very high workload... such as comatose patients.

Unfortunately, the amount of staff available for patient care is dictated by the budgeted number of "nursing hours" per patient... so there just isn't any 'down time' these days. In many cases, there is no consideration of "acuity" at all. Staffing is just based on number of patients.